#76 Relaxation Hypnosis for Stress, Anxiety & Panic Attacks - (Jason Newland) (18th January 2020)

Hello, welcome to jasonnewland.com. My name is Jason Newland. This is relaxation hypnosis for stress, anxiety and panic attacks. Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes.

I just want to say a quick thank you to all of you that are making this podcast a success. I really appreciate the people that listen, those of you that listen, well, everyone that's listening isn't really, but I appreciate it because it makes what I do worthwhile. So, for today, what I would do is, I want to talk about some of the symptoms of anxiety, or we could say some of the symptoms of maybe having an anxiety attack or a panic attack.

And the rapid breathing, or the hyperventilation kind of thing, that was what I was looking to focus on. And before I continue, just to remind you, if you're not aware, I do other podcasts to help with insomnia, to help you with sleeping. That's one of the things I kind of, you could say I specialize in, in a sense of, I do a lot of that stuff.

So, I've got a few podcasts that are focused just on sleeping. So, it might be worth checking out. If you go to my website, jasonnewland.com, they're all on there.

And I do new recordings most days for the Deep Sleep Whisperer hypnosis, the Let Me Bore You To Sleep as well. I usually do a new one, trying to do one every day with those. So, the whole breathing thing, I think it's important to kind of categorize in some ways, you know, if someone's got asthma, or is it COPD, or some kind of lung issue, or a heart issue, you know, someone's got a physical, medical issue that maybe involves breathing, then I'm not talking to those people.

I'm not ignoring them. I'm not going to talk to people with heart problems. I don't mean that.

I mean, this recording is not aimed at people that have an actual physical illness or disease, which affects the breathing. Because they will be on medication, they would have, for asthmatic people would have an asthma inhaler, maybe two, maybe also be on medication. Someone with OC, I forget the name of some of them, but they might have gas, you know, gas cylinder and different things that they need to take.

So that's a different thing. And the reason I'm being specific for that is, for someone that doesn't have a physical issue, where they're physically fine, I'm talking about heart, lungs, part of the body. When they're going through an anxiety moment, it could be a brief period of time, it could be a full blown panic attack or anxiety attack.

And the breathing could change, you know, it could become quicker, or it could become harder to feel like it's harder to breathe. Now, the reason why I'm trying to separate the people who have physical issues and people that don't is, if someone has a physical, asthmatic or whatever, then they need to address the breathing very seriously and get it sorted and do take the medication and do what they need to do in order to resolve that issue in that moment, and then get medical help if required.

If somebody doesn't have those issues, and you know it's anxiety that's causing the breathing, or causing the breathing disruption, or the feeling that your heart's coming out of your chest, even though it's not, then there's a different kind of way of looking at it.

But saying that, and I'm going to contradict myself now, saying that because I'm talking about ways of relaxing, ways of getting in touch with reality, the reality of the situation is, you're going to be okay. And that can sound condescending, can sound like you're being talked down to, and I don't mean it to be that way. But you know what, in the moment, it's not necessarily helpful to someone to say you're going to be okay.

It can be really helpful, but if you get that idea and you let it spread around your mind when you're feeling all right, it's almost like you've prepared. The way an athlete prepares before, you know, running 100 meters, they prepare mentally, they prepare for it, prepare physically as well. So, when it comes to that burst of energy, and I'm talking like I know anything about running 100 meters, it took me about three days, but they're prepared.

And I think in situations like with anxiety, if you know that there's a possibility, at least, of having an issue come up, when you're prepared, it's like having a first aid kit with you, but a virtual one, a one that's inside your mind, a bunch of things that you can do. So, you're not physically carrying around a big green bag, which I think is the color of the first aid kits these days.

But in your mind, you've got these tools that you can use, whether it's meditation, whether it's counting the breaths, whether it's remembering that you're going to be all right.

Remember that no one's ever died from a panic attack unless the person was really ill to start with. So, that's where there's that line where if someone's got a heart condition, then the person needs to, I mean, seriously needs to work on relaxing and finding a way to relax quickly. Hopefully, find a way to not get at that level where the anxiety is affecting the body to the extent of the heart racing too much.

Because anxiety does make the heart race, the pulse goes, but it doesn't go as fast as it feels that it's going. When I used to get really at the worst time with the anxiety, I'd almost feel like the adrenaline was being kick-started in like an engine or a chainsaw or a boat engine. Sounds like whoosh! And just instantly, this big surge of energy that was not really needed or wanted.

It was not welcome. And it was uncomfortable. Well, that's an understatement.

It was absolutely awful. And the heart's racing, pumping. And as a whole, what I used to read is fight or flight.

Fight or flight. What I've done about fight or flight, I was reading books, is to fight or flight. Like you're being chased by a lion, or in the old days, chased by a dinosaur.

And the blood would go and move from the stomach to your legs so that you could physically run fast. But if you got that feeling, and you didn't do anything, it could cause you to feel really uncomfortable and physically really full of adrenaline, but not using it. I suppose an equivalent would, or kind of an equivalent would be to drink coffee non-stop and be sitting at a desk.

Looking at a computer screen. And I've done that as well in the past. I don't do that now, but I used to work.

Sitting down in an office, drinking coffee. So that was almost kick-starting the adrenaline. But all I was doing was just sitting there.

Gradually putting weight on, actually, as well. But what it missed out, what these books were missing out, is they had the fight or flight. They didn't have freeze.

Now, more recently, the books are including that a little bit, but a lot of them still don't. Fight, flight, freeze. Now, I'm a freezer.

Sometimes I'm a fridge. Other times, I'm a washing machine. That's been silly.

In the past, I've been a freezer. So, I haven't fought, and I haven't run. I've just been frozen.

Not knowing what to do next. And I would say that's how I was with the first panic attack I had, the first major one. And others, since then, sometimes I would run.

So, if I was in a bookshop, suddenly it'd come over me, and I'd run out of the bookshop, and I'd get out. But there's also a part of me that froze. Like, what do I do? What do I do? This makes no sense.

There is no threat. There's nothing that I'm scared of in this moment, other than what's actually happening. I spent two years when the only thing I was scared of was having a panic attack.

It's the only thing I was scared of. And that increased the likelihood of me having them, because it's almost all I was thinking about. And we generally get what we think about, because our unconscious mind thinks that's what we want.

If you're consciously thinking about doing something. So, if someone's always thinking about smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol, chances are that's all they're going to want to do. And there's a very big chance that that's what they're going to end up doing, if that's what all they're thinking about.

Or if you're carrying a tray full of glasses, and you're carrying them through a restaurant or whatever, or through your house, and all you're thinking about is, I'm going to drop this tray, I'm going to drop this tray. The chances of you dropping the tray are very, very high. But if you're just walking through, not even thinking about it, you know, just confident that you're just going to get to where you're going and put the tray down.

The odds of you dropping the tray are very, very low. Unless you've got one leg shorter than the other, then that might cause a problem, but you know, generally. So, with the breathing, it's not always as simple as some of the books I've read in the past.

Some books have said, well, just let yourself faint. If you feel you're going to faint, let yourself faint. See what happens.

You're not going to die. And almost matter of fact, sort of mentality, which is true. But it depends.

Because if someone's got a heart condition or other issues that affect their breathing, like asthma, or an allergy or something like that, then ignoring it isn't necessarily a good thing. In fact, ignoring it is definitely not a good thing. So it's worth making sure that you're okay.

And I'm not saying that everyone should go to the doctor every time they have a panic attack or an anxiety attack. But I am saying get yourself checked out. Make sure you're okay.

Because one thing that I benefited from doing that is put my mind at ease. To know that I was, there was nothing wrong with my heart. There's nothing wrong with my lungs.

I felt incredibly guilty for, in my mind, wasting the time of the hospital or the doctor, or recently the ambulance even, but that wasn't really my, I didn't ask the ambulance to come. I was having palpitations in my chest a couple of months back. But I've done a recording about that.

But that wasn't, I didn't want the ambulance to come, but they'd already sent it. And after they checked me out, I felt better. But it was almost like the palpitations were, was making my anxiety raise.

Another thing, I know I shift and turn and go into different directions when I make recordings. And yesterday, my last recording, I talked about asking for help. I think it's a good idea to, if you've got someone you can phone or someone you can knock on the door, a neighbor, friend, who can just sit with you.

If you've got an ambulance coming, for example, very few people are going to turn you away and say, go away. You know, they're going to say, go, I'll sit with you till the ambulance gets here. Or I'll help you get to the hospital, or I'll sit with you until you calm down.

You know, people are generally really kind, especially in emergency situations. If it's an emergency, and if you've got a friend, family member, even if you don't feel it's an emergency, maybe still give them a call. Or if you've got someone, a neighbor, you can just knock on their door.

And it can almost be like a distraction. Just having someone, because when I've got someone in my home, I'm kind of looking out for them. Not in like a major way, but it's almost to kind of make sure they're okay.

Do they need a drink? Are they, you know, are they comfortable? And that's a nice little distraction. I don't go all out wanting to cook them a meal and stuff because they can feed themselves. But I, you know, this, if there's someone you can ask for help, then do that.

I highly recommend that. Get yourself checked out. If you've, if you're having pains in your chest, get yourself checked out.

It may well be due to the panic, or if you've got palpitations, it may well be due to the anxiety. I mean, the percentage of people that get checked, get ECGs and get their lungs checked are going to be absolutely fine. Most people in the world that get checked out are fine.

And it also puts your mind at rest. And then you can deal with the anxiety as anxiety. And it reduces it.

Because for me, part of the anxiety in the past, well, everything's in the past, isn't it? But part of it is not knowing. And I've noticed that as I've got older. Now I'm 49, I'm kind of, well, it could be something physical.

It might not just be part of my mental makeup, or part of my anxiety or stress or depression or bipolar or whatever it might, maybe it is a physical thing. And another thing I wanted to mention is, I don't know what country you're listening to this in. But in the UK, there's been a big drive.

It's almost like the press, even adverts sometimes trying to, it seems almost to shame the population into not going to the hospital. You know, constantly talking about the amount of people that waste the hospital's time or waste the doctor's time and always focus on someone that maybe goes to the accident emergency because they've got a splinter. Now I'm pretty sure something like that would happen really, really, really rarely.

And also, if someone does something like that, and they don't need medical attention, then it's probably a mental health issue connected. You know, they need, perhaps they need other help, but maybe you don't know how to ask for it, possibly. So try to let go of that, if it is there within you, that feeling that, oh, I shouldn't contact emergency services.

I should just be ill for as long, you know, and see what happens. Phone up one of the NHS or phone up a medical practitioner, just get yourself checked out, make sure that you're okay. Because you have every right to medical care that anybody else does.

And anxiety, stress, panic disorders, it's all mental health issues. This is as important as somebody that's got asthma or diabetes. It's a serious medical health issue that affects your life.

Someone with having panic attacks on a regular basis, and you compare that to someone with diabetes, you might say, well, yeah, we're not going to, someone with diabetes could end up losing a limb, it could shorten their, you know, it's a very serious medical condition. But on the other side, well-treated and with a proper diet, with proper medication, a person with diabetes is going to have a lot less time off work than someone with acute anxiety or depression, or having panic attacks.

And having prolonged anxiety without doing anything, without, you know, helping, getting help with a medication, with a therapy, talking therapies, or it could be massages, it could be meditation, listening to an audio, finding different ways to relax, hypnosis, there's lots of different ways to change the way that you feel.

And I always find that a gradual process, I like the gradual process, I'm very slow in a sense of, I like things to happen gradually. You know, like the way a puppy grows, you're with the puppy every day, and it grows, and you don't really notice it, but it's growing gradually. But then someone that doesn't see the puppy for two months comes and is like, wow, I can't believe how big Buster is.

It's like, oh, okay, I suppose he is, isn't he? And this happens so naturally, that you're still picking him up, and he doesn't really feel any heavier than he did when he was a baby, although he's a lot heavier. But you've accustomed yourself, you've, you know, your body's managed that different weight, and you become stronger in the process. So I quite like the idea of gradual, a gradual shifting in maybe perspective towards how you used to feel regarding anxiety, stress, things like that, to the point where you start to realize that you do actually feel different.

Those moments of anxiety, they last less time, they're less frequent, they're less severe. And you can almost get to the point where your mind knows, it's almost like to release a valve in your brain to let the stress out. But it does it automatically.

You might start doing it, you know, manually to start with. And that's almost like listening to a recording like this or doing meditation or, you know, doing a relaxation exercise could be a manual version of letting some of that stress out of the valve. So it doesn't build up.

The pressure never gets an opportunity to build up to the point that would lead to an anxiety attack. And then eventually, the signals are there. So that when those feelings arise long before those feelings arise, the valve automatically opens, lets that stress out, release that stress automatically.

So that the level can never get anywhere near as high as it used to. So maybe, you know, the level used to be a 10. And then the anxiety attack would happen.

And you might not have been aware that it was a 10. But what the anxiety does, it actually, it's a great warning. It's unpleasant.

It's an unpleasant warning. But it's, it's a really useful thing. Because it's telling you, in fact, it's demanding, your body, your mind is demanding of you, that it's no longer allowed to get that high, won't allow your stress levels to get as high as it used to.

And anytime it gets maybe, it doesn't even allow you to get to a 10 anymore. And that's, I think, how panic seems to work, and why it maybe lasts a little while. And I noticed that I went from being able to deal with really quite high pressure sales, I was working sales.

So I was at a 10 and I could function on a 10. Fine. And then after having the anxiety attack, and having subsequent ones, I couldn't even get to an eight without having an anxiety attack.

And then a seven was triggering it. Six was triggering discomfort. So by having that valve, learning to manually open the valve, it means that the stress level never gets anywhere near the point which can trigger those feelings that you used to have with anxiety attacks and panic attacks.

The pressure can't get that high. It's unable to, it's physically unable to. You couldn't even will it.

You know, it's just, you can't, it just can't happen because you've got that safety valve that automatically is continuously letting out the stress throughout the day and throughout the night. Unconsciously, it's just letting it out. It's almost, you could say, like having two doors, the back door and the front door both open and the wind is blowing through.

If you had just one door open, the wind would kind of get caught a little bit. But when you've got that, both the window, both the doors open, back door and front door, you've just got air going through the whole time. And even the worst fart cannot linger with that air continuously going through, which means the pressure, well, there is no pressure, it's continuously releasing.

So when you focus on your breathing, I've talked about getting yourself checked out, making sure that you're physically okay, to give yourself peace of mind. Once you know that you're physically okay, then, and you listen regularly, you listen every day to a recording and something happens, and it's quite weird the way it works. Certain ideas start to stick, some that you'll think about, some that you'll kind of keep thinking about and wonder why, why am I thinking about that?

Others, they just sink deep in, and you never have to think about it again.

But those changes have been made within you, so that that valve is continuously releasing the stress. Because we've all got stress, we're always going to have stress in our bodies and in our minds. It's part of being alive, and we need a degree of stress in order to function.

And I suppose there's good stress and there's bad stress, but we can just call it stress, we can just call it being alive. It's about feeling comfortable. It's about being able to function, to feel relaxed in your body, but at the same time, feeling strong, feeling healthy, feeling well, being able to think without a racing mind, being able to just think calmly, but also maybe quickly at the same time.

Everything I do is quite slow, and part of that is purposely, part of that is because I was just born slow, in a way. I just move slowly, I talk slowly, I kind of, maybe I think slowly, I don't know. My brain seems quite okay, but I'm quite slow, and I feel comfortable like that.

I'm not someone to rush around. And when I do rush around, it doesn't feel pleasant to me. So that brings to another thing.

What is your natural disposition? Are you doing something that goes against what you would naturally do? Are you racing around when actually you're naturally someone that would perhaps take a bit more time? But the reason you're rushing around is because you're not giving yourself enough time to take time to do those things. So maybe you're getting out of bed a little bit later. So if you got out of bed half an hour earlier, you could eat your breakfast slower, and you could maybe walk to a train station instead of practically running.

Or you could get to work in time so you can get prepared, rather than getting there and rushing around and, you know, getting all ready really quickly. So things like that, I find cause stress, unwanted stress. So I don't do it.

I used to know someone years ago, and he lived in the house I lived in, and he would get up at least two hours before he left for work. And it was his favourite time of the day. He'd get up very early in the morning if he was on an early shift.

So let's say he started work at six, or seven, he'd get up at four in the morning, come downstairs, have some breakfast, have a coffee, and just relax. And do whatever he wanted to do for those two hours. He'd have a nice long shower and just take his time.

And then go to work. And he said it was so relaxing to do that. Because when he got to work, he felt calm.

And it's not going to be for everyone because not everybody wants to be getting up at four o'clock in the morning. I know I don't. But it's finding what works for you.

Finding your own, I suppose it's your own pace, isn't it? You know, people say like a running pace, people have a pace where they run that's comfortable, that kind of fits their body and their health, their pulse rate, you know, kind of feels right. So I think that anxiety can come along when we almost go against ourselves. We try and live against what our natural, I would say comfort zone is, but I think the word comfort zone can represent someone being lazy and being limited.

And, you know, I don't mean it in that way. There's nothing wrong with being comfortable. Nothing wrong with being relaxed.

How could being comfortable and being relaxed, how could that be a dirty word? Being comfortable and relaxed doesn't mean being lazy. So if you're comfortable, and you're in the zone where you feel good, you feel relaxed, and you feel how you want to feel, then the chances are your body and your mind will not react, will not cause you to feel anything other than a degree of pleasure and comfort when it comes to breathing.

It's also worth remembering that in the same way that sleeping is something that we're born naturally able to do, and breathing is another thing.

It's just the most natural thing. And providing there's no underlying physical issues, you're going to breathe. As long as your airway passage is clear, you're going to be able to breathe.

And the breathing will change. It may feel like it's going really fast, but eventually it will slow down. And you can listen to me if you've got a fast breathing, because after listening to me for a while, your breathing will slow down.

Because I'm talking so slowly, I guess. It's a very, very slow pace with all of my recordings. My breathing slows down when I make a recording.

I feel relaxed and calm. Sometimes when I'm doing the sleep sessions, I do literally fall asleep, which is not really what I want to do, because I'll wake up and I'll kind of, okay, so was I snoring? I have to listen back to see if I've been snoring and stuff so I can edit it out. So when it comes to the symptoms, of course, if you read a book or if you go online, it's going to give a list of symptoms that you may have, but we're all different.

And you could address each one separately. Once you address one, the others reduce, because they don't have the power. And also, if you think about it, so you've got, let's say you've got the symptoms, maybe sweating palms, racing heart, nausea, speed in mind or whatever, start splitting them up.

Literally, in your mind, split them up. And they're no longer touching each other. They've no longer got the energy that they had before.

So they can't actually operate on their own to the extent that they did before. They lose their power. And once they lose their power, they can't affect you.

Just in the same way, if you take a light bulb out, the room goes dark, or the light bulb goes out, at the very least. And nothing you do is going to get that light bulb to turn on, unless you plug it back into a socket designed for that light bulb, or for a light bulb, you know. You can hold it above your head, you can put it on the floor, you can do a little rain dance around it.

It's going to make no difference, because the power has been disconnected from that light bulb. It can't do anything on its own. In the same way, an anxiety attack kind of needs all those bits together.

Start separating them. And then they no longer work. Move the sweaty palms to one side on their own, take it away from the other stuff.

Your palms just get dry again. Someone has a dry mouth, move that just to one side, just a dry mouth. And you start to have saliva in your mouth again, it sort of starts to come back to normal.

The heart rate, if it's an increased heart rate, move that just to one side, separate it from all the other stuff. Just do that on its own, like that. The light bulb, take it out, put it on the carpet.

It doesn't do anything on its own, it just goes back to normal. Its standard state of a normal light bulb, its normal state is just off. It's not attached to anything, it just does what it does, it's just there.

And your heartbeat just goes back to normal. And you feel okay. The racing mind, if you feel like your mind's racing, move that separate from all the other stuff.

Again, like the light bulb, just put it on the and look at it and say, actually it's all right. Things start to slow down, as with the breathing as well. Just separate them from each other.

You know, it's like the old analogy, isn't it? If you put a teaspoon or a big heaped teaspoon of salt in a small cup of water, and you go to drink that water out of that cup, there's only one thing you're going to taste, and it's going to be pretty disgusting, and it's going to be salt. Yeah, if you fill a swimming pool up with just normal water, not chlorinated, obviously, just normal water, and you put the same amount of salt, drop it in the middle of the water of the swimming pool, you can drink as much of that water as you want.

Guaranteed, you won't taste any of that salt.

Sometimes, it is about how you think differently about things that causes those changes to naturally occur. Sometimes, we don't even perhaps need to know what changes are necessary, but we know the feeling. First of all, we know the feeling we don't want, and we can focus on the feelings that we do want.

Because one thing we do all know, we know what it feels like to feel relaxed. We all know what it feels like to feel calm. We all know what it feels like to feel sleepy.

We all know what it feels like to feel excited, to feel happy. We all know what it feels like to have these emotions, these physical feelings. None of it is new.

All of us have felt relaxed and calm thousands of times probably in our life. So, it's not a feeling that really needs a lot of searching for. It's accessible pretty much instantly, and you can put your trust in your unconscious mind to give you that feeling because it's there, easily accessible, easily attainable, always available.

It's starting to sound like a poem, doesn't it? Accessible, attainable, available. So, I've covered a few things in this recording, like I usually seem to do. I hope that some of it's been useful, and some of the ideas you'll think about consciously.

Some of the ideas will go into your unconscious mind. And changes happen. Change is going to happen anyway.

But sometimes I think our unconscious mind, plus our conscious mind, perhaps needs to focus on what you do want. In fact, it's not maybe. I think it's a literal scientific fact that in order to get what you want, you need to focus on what you want.

This has been proven. So, if you want more comfort, you focus on having more comfort and what it will feel like. If you want to feel more relaxed, you focus on how it's going to feel to feel more relaxed in the future, in hours time, tomorrow, tonight, almost like a rehearsal.

As I said, like a sports person would do, an Olympic runner rehearses in their mind not just physically rehearsing, but mentally rehearsing the movement of their body, winning the race, the whole process, over and over again, many, many times. So, I may have repeated in this recording what I've said in previous recordings, and I'm very likely to repeat in future recordings what I've said in this recording.

That's part of the process.

Sometimes you can hear something 10 times, but it's that 11th time that you hear it, that something clicks, something changes. Within you. Now, I'm going to do a go.

I say thank you for listening. Remember to be kind to yourself, because you deserve to be happy. Lots of love.

Bye.